Category: humor for women

The first thing I noticed about him was his height. He was tall. Not freakishly so, but tall enough to make my knees a little weak. We talked a bit of shop over oysters and Manhattans. His job, of course, was more interesting than mine so we mostly talked about him. His career seemed dreamy – filled with music and big names. His brown eyes made me blush and the whiskey made me slutty. Naturally, I found myself back at his apartment.

He was a lot older than me – nearly twice my age. He lived in a tiny studio apartment on the east side of town. It was more or less a janitor’s closet with a kitchen. It was cheaply renovated and featured the same flashy fake marble flooring I had in my apartment. He didn’t have any furniture. The only place to sit was on a thin mattress that looked like it came off of a futon. A couple of pillows and some crumbled sheets were laying on top of it. “Oh, that must be the bed” I muddled under my breath. We met online – Tinder more specifically. I really shouldn’t have given him the benefit of the doubt after seeing his apartment. But he was handsome, and I’m recklessly shallow – so I stayed.

He took me up to the roof of his apartment and kissed me slowly – thoughtfully. When he pulled away and I looked up towards the sky, I could actually see a few stars. Inside, he poured me wine and told me stories about being a teenager in the nineties. It made him seem so cool in a way I’m embarrassed to admit. I Imagined him and his friends being like the cool kids in the teen dramas I would watch on tv as a child and it made me weirdly envious.

Just before I let myself get swept up by his cool charm, I noticed something odd. He really liked feet. He touched my feet more than anything on my body and although I would try to politely wiggle them away – he would always find them. “Sorry, I have kind of a fetish.” He giggled mischievously. “Oh, I don’t mind.” I lied, giggling back. I thought it was weird, but it was still better than watching New Girl alone in my apartment, surrounded by cats.

I went out with him again. We had a nice dinner and laughed and talked like old friends. He was incredibly hyperactive. He had such a surprising amount of energy that I wondered if he needed adult Ritalin. People who can’t still generally make me very anxious but I felt at ease with him for some reason. I trusted that because he was much older than me, that he was the level headed man I needed in my life. Then, he finished the evening on my feet.

“Well, at least it wasn’t on your face.” I have always loved my cousin’s strong sense of reason. “But my feet…isn’t that kind of weird?” Foot fetishes were a new topic for my circle of friends. We mostly all had the same confused reaction like, why feet? and honestly I still don’t know. He didn’t either – because I asked him. Even though I was slightly horrified by the mental image of him sucking on my toes, I went out with him again. New York City has significantly lowered my standards.

On our third date, we ate Indian and his eyes swelled up like grapefruits. Not from the Indian but from my cat, Pippin, who had decided to curl up on his face while I was in the other room. He didn’t even push him off – he just let it happen. He just sat still on my couch, with a cat wrapped around his face, well-knowing he was allergic to cats. It should have been a red flag. He still managed to be charming though, even through the sniffles and coughs. He left my feet alone, and I was incredibly relieved. We spent a lovely evening together, but the morning would prove to be much different.

In the middle of the night something truly disturbing happened. I woke up and skipped out of bed and into the bathroom. I looked down just before I disrobed and what I saw horrified me. There, in my toilet, lay a gigantic, disintegrating turd. I nearly vomited. My roommate still wasn’t home from being out the night before so it couldn’t have been anybody else. I flushed it down and shoved my head in a towel and screamed. I walked back into my room like nothing had happened. I climbed into bed and tried desperately not to wake him. He rolled over and put his arm around me, pulling me closer. I wanted to climb out of my skin.

Just before he left, he kissed me on the cheek and called me kiddo. I shuttered. We didn’t speak again after that. We didn’t need to. I was lonely from my last break up and looking for love in all of the wrong places. Fortunately enough it was not with a middle-aged man with a foot fetish.

I passed by him on the street on the way to the bar where we were set to meet. I looked at him, made eye contact, and continued walking completely unaware that the tiny man who brushed passed me was the same one I had been messaging with. I sat down at the bar and ordered a drink, I checked my phone, and began to anxiously slurp down my beer. When I saw him walk towards me again, I thought seriously about pretending I didn’t speak English. Unfortunately, I am defined by my basic whiteness and couldn’t fake another language if my life depended on it. So instead I stood up from the bar stool and said hello. He pressed my face unapologetically into his small, bony chest. He smelled so strongly of stale cigarettes that I gagged a little.

He didn’t look much like his pictures. He was much smaller and worn looking and if there was ever any light behind his deep brown eyes, it was gone now. He stumbled a bit before he sat down and explained that he had, had a few beers before leaving his apartment. It was 5:00PM. I had always heard that Australians drink to excess but it was clear by his fifth vodka tonic that he had a real problem. He kept the bartender close, snapping at her and demanding service every time she tried to stray from his eye site. He became increasingly loud and brash as he gulped drink after drink–grabbing my inner thighs, making fun of homeless people sleeping in subway cars, and proudly telling stories of how he almost died three times but always came back. I wondered if he had left the bridge he was guarding in order to go out with me that night. He was so crude and unwashed that he could have been a character from a Brother’s Grimm fable.

At one point he alerted me that he needed to “drop a load” and I thanked God silently as I finally had time to escape. “You should really get out of here. He’s getting pretty aggressive.” The bartender looked at me seriously. “Did you meet on Tinder? I’ve seen this a lot. It’s not going to get better from here.” I nodded, jumped off of my stool, and ran out onto the street. Even after he informed me that his goal in life was to be able to sit on his ass all day and drink and asked me if I like giving blow jobs in the same breath, I still needed reassurance from a stranger to be able to get up and run for my life. I swear, my midwestern politeness will absolutely be my downfall.

Later that week he texted me. “What happened? I really liked you, I thought things were going well.” At first, I thought he was the med student I went out with a week earlier. I walked out on him too, shortly after he ordered me a vodka Redbull and pulled up pornographic images on his phone and slid them across the table for me to see. Okay, bro you might as well have just put roofies in my drink too. I felt genuinely sorry for Aussie but at the same time I knew that anyone who would seriously suggest feeding LSD to homeless people for sport was not the sort of person who warranted my sympathy.

I didn’t think about him again until he was standing over me, ready to take my order. My friend was in town and her, my roommate, and I all traveled into the city for a day of brunch and museums. We stopped off at a beautiful restaurant close to our destination. Excited to be out of the cold we all shuffled into a booth and dusted the fallen snow from our hats and shoulders. “Hi, welcome. Can I get you ladies something to drink?” Oh fuck. He didn’t recognize me at first, and I wondered if he would at all considering how completely belligerent he was throughout our date. He took our drink order and left the table.

“No, oh my God, no. We are in New York City. There are MILLIONS of people in this city…how is this happening?” My friends looked up at me, alarmed. “That’s him…that’s the guy I went out with.” Neither of them could believe it. Honestly, neither could I. You could really see how filthy he was in the light of day and it made my stomach sink and my skin crawl.

He finally recognized me when he placed my mimosa in front of me. His face became bright red and he walked straight into the kitchen without dropping the rest of our drinks. Needless to say, the service wasn’t very good after that. Some poor, half asleep bus boy was forced to bring us our food and refill our coffees. It didn’t occur to me until after I finished my $17.00 meal that he could have easily spit on it without me noticing. Welcome to my dating life, even in the most amazing city on earth, it is still so awkward and pathetic.

We begged the bus boy to bring us our bill but my Tinder date had already grabbed it and was moving from table to table with it in his pocket, making us wait 30 minutes before finally dropping it. He was helping the table next to us when he tried to nonchalantly hand it to me without making eye contact. He sort of handed to us behind his back while still chatting with the other table and spilled my roommates mimosa all over her in the process.

The entire meal, much like our three hour date was painful. It was like watching a car crash. You squirm and turn in your seat and hold your breath until it’s over. We walked out onto 6th avenue and continued our journey to the Upper West Side. I vowed I would never log onto Tinder or another dating app again as long as I lived, and I didn’t–for an entire two weeks.

Like this:

It was a quarter past two when we left the bar. I had been drinking with a friend from work and his roommates. Alcohol can play tricks on the mind and at that point my beer goggles could have made Gary Busey look like Channing Tatum. This may have been the reason why I agreed to leave with my friend’s little brother. He was, of course, an unapologetic bro, complete with a cut off tank top and a backwards hat. He wasn’t my usual type but after a long night of tequila and cherry bombs my standards had dropped tremendously.

I don’t remember what we talked about on the long walk to his house. For all I know we could’ve been walking in complete silence. Although, I was probably talking he may have only been responding with grunts or nods of agreeance that said, “I don’t care, but I look like I do.” In reality, we would have had nothing to say to each other. I’m a free thinking modern feminist and he well, likes to wrestle when he’s drunk. The first time I met him I was taped to his best friend. We were playing edward forty hands and our hands were taped together around two forties of warm Budweiser. He was on crutches because he had recently had some kind of surgery. He hobbled up to me, lifted his crutch up off the ground and poked me in the crotch with it. He didn’t even blink as he continued to crutch me in the crotch. He just stared at me for a moment before putting his crutch back on the ground and hopping away. I must have forgotten this strange little incident when I decided to go home with him.

When we got to his house, things got weird. He didn’t say much, he just walked straight to the back of his house, found his dog, and hugged it for a very long time. I started to feel uncomfortable, as if I was intruding on some shared romantic moment. I walked into the kitchen and asked the first person I saw if I could use a cup for water. He looked at me and said, “Well we don’t have any clean cups, but we have bowls.” So there I was, standing in an unfamiliar space drinking from a bowl and watching this guy practically make out with his dog.

We stumbled up the stairs and upon entering his room he announced with great pride, “Isn’t my room great?” He was being serious. “Uh, yeah.” I managed, fighting back the laughter, “It sure is something.” Still reveling in the glory of his bachelor pad he turned on his speakers and proceeded to play dub-step at max volume. Nothing dries me out faster than wompy beats and base loud enough to rumble an entire house. I was sitting on his bed trying to keep my head from exploding as he stood with his back to me. His arms were stretched out horizontally with his hands clenched into tight little fists as his head bobbed up and down to the music. It was easily one of the strangest things I had ever seen. Just when I thought he might stand there forever, he turned around and ripped off his shirt. He stood there for a moment and stared at me. No one had ever made me feel like prey the way this kid did. With out blinking his eyes seemed to say, “You ready for this?” and I know mine must have been saying, “Oh god, no.” He grabbed a condom and jumped on the bed.

With the condom still in hand he kissed me. He kissed me until someone kicked open the door. It was his roommate, “Hey dude, you got any rubbers?” “Here, take this one!” I offered up the one in his hand. “Oh damn, you’re not using it?” He winked at me, “nice!” I explained to them both that I actually needed to leave because I had much more important things I could be doing at 4:30 in the morning like, not having sex with this gorilla. His roommate left and he looked defeated. “Are you serious? That’s so dumb.” He wined. “Yeah I’ve got to go but thanks for having me!” Before I could even sit up he was on his feet standing at the side of the bed. He dropped his pants and began to move his hips in a semi-circle which sent his penis wagging back and forth. My mouth dropped. “You don’t want this girl? Are you sure you don’t want some of this?” Oh yes, I’m quite sure I don’t want that. I was absolutely speechless. I’ve witnessed men do a lot of strange things but this one took the cake. If this was some kind of strange new dating ritual I wanted none of it. He must have noticed the disgust on my face because eventually he stopped and pulled his pants back up. He laid down on the floor and began to pout. I tip toed over him grabbing my jacket and then my shoes. When I bent over to grab my purse he stuck is arm in the air and grabbed my left butt cheek. He started slapping and grabbing it. I jerked my head around to look at him and still he continued, with out blinking and with out emotion. Okay, this is getting weird. This guys a psycho and I have to get out of here. He was still laying on the floor when I jumped over him and scurried out of his room and into the night. It was warm so the mile and a half walk wasn’t bad. I was comforted with the thought that at least I wouldn’t be sharing a bed with a horny robot.

The next morning his brother called me, expecting I would still be at his little brother’s house. When I explained that he had terrified me with his wiener dance so I left, he seemed hurt. It was a how could you not fuck my brother kind of disappointment that I was unfamiliar with. I don’t know what turned me off more, his actions or the fact that his eyes were glazed over with a brain dead haze the entire time. Either way, this experience begs me to ask the question: What is wrong with young men? Seriously, why do they think they can just run around like horny animals all the time? It’s sick, but what’s even sicker is I’m sure there are girls who actually sleep with guys who act like this. When did the college sexual experience trade in a mutual exchange of pleasure and emotion for 5-7 minutes of mindless jackhammering, or is this the way it’s always been? My point is that most young men seem like they could care less about making the woman they’re with feel good. Sex has become less of a partnered act and more of masturbation with the help of a vagina. So ladies, next time you’re standing at the bar or waiting around a party clenching your red solo cup and a beefy guy in a pink polo catches your eye, keep walking. You can do better, and you are no bro hoe.

I stared at the screen and my hands began to shake. Every cell in my body was seizing with anger and I thought seriously about throwing my keyboard through the office window. “He blocked me on Facebook?? Are you fucking kidding me?!” I screamed at the computer. And there it was, the inevitable ending I was looking for. I had been half expecting him to break up with me for weeks before it happened. Of course, I expected him to handle the situation…well a little differently then he did.

I hadn’t spoken to him in three weeks prior to the Facebook incident. We had decided to take some space apart, which is laughable considering we live almost 900 miles away from each other. He was set to try out for a soccer team in Thailand and assured me that he needed space to “mentally prepare for the challenges ahead.” Apparently for him, mental preparation requires having sex with his ex girlfriend.

So, that’s sort of how it ended. He deleted our love with the click of a mouse and it was gone so quickly it was like it never happened. He sent me an email a couple weeks after, mostly so he could ask me to stop messing with his wikipedia page. Drinking can drive you to do crazy things sometimes. Luckily, I didn’t get much crazier than changing his name to “Douche” and changing the word soccer to “Douching”. Before I knew it his page looked like a poorly executed mad lib.

Work began piling up on my next, and by that I mean a FB post went unanswered. Regardless, I was not living up to my potential. I listened to nothing but Aimee Mann and Ani Difranco for two weeks straight before my CEO finally knocked on my door and asked me if everything was alright. I looked up from my desk and into his soul, “Tell your daughters to never date athletes.” He nodded his head and backed away from my office with caution. Everyone sort of left me alone after that. My weekends were filled with drunken debouchery and my attempts at dressing “sexy and single” fell short and I looked more like a baby prostitute than anything else. I stopped wearing pants and eating anywhere besides my bed. I had spent the last 8 months allowing my life and my future to revolve around someone other than myself, someone who was using me and who didn’t really care for me at all. It was time to pick myself up off the floor, put on my big girl pants, and try to get my life back on track. It was time for a rebound.

There was another guy that I had, had my eye on. He had meaningless leg tattoos, a beard, and dumb job–the attraction was immediate. One night he even got drunk enough to tell me that he’s incapable of loving other people. We made out sloppily for hours on his sweat stained sheets. His room, his bed, and his beard reaked of stale cigarette smoke. He had “rebound” written all over him and I went in for the kill. It wasn’t until he rejected me, that I thought seriously about revaulating the decisions I was making. “But I’m hotter than him. I have a better job and a brand new car. Like, I have everything going for me. How can he NOT be into this??” My friend stared blankly from behind her lit cigarette. “Do you even like him?” “No, I’m just trying to get back out there.” She took a long pause before finally responding, “He sends snap chats of himself on the toilet, and you want to have sex with him.” “Yes, that’s what I’m saying. Sure I get rejected in relationships ALL THE TIME but never for casual sex. NEVER for casual sex. What’s happening to me?” My friend practically fell over laughing, my face flushed pink with embarrassment and suddenly I felt deeply irritated. “You need to relax, you’re just hitting your quarter-life crisis a little earlier than most people. You’ll be fine.”

Quarter-life crisis–It didn’t need to be explained. I knew exactly what those words meant as soon as they fell from her mouth. College was over, my friends had all found healthy relationships or had moved away, or both. Real life had begun and it was sucking me in some unknown direction, one filled with morning commutes and paperwork. I thought about my job, how hard I work and how little money I make, I thought about still living in Columbus in a stuffy condo that I hate, I thought about my latest failed relationship and realized that this was not where I thought I’d be at 23. It was enough to push me near the brink of a complete meltdown, during which I continued to try to answer my own question of What the fuck do I want out of life?

The truth is that I only really think I know what I want. I do know that I don’t want to be sitting in an office watching the 27th severe summer storm of the season only to realize that my windows are down and my umbrella’s in the car. Moments like these remind me that my life might be a cruel joke. There’s a reason why I don’t know what I want and it’s the same reason why these little life crisis’ exist. It’s because we tend to lose ourselves sometimes. We put other people’s needs before our own until we stop remembering who we are and what we were made for. We allow ourselves to become disconnected from our goals and dreams and once realized, it can cause stifling depression and anxiety. I’m tired of trying to live my life for some guy, or for my friends, or even for my parents. I’m looking for me, and I’m not going to stop until I’ve found her. I’m going to prove that your twenties are not a lost decade by making mine the into gold.

And on the 12th day of Christmas my true love…shat on my heart. Proving that all men are created equal; equally shitty. That’s right kids, gather ’round for a truly memorable holiday tale filled with sex, lies, and full blown douche-ary. This is the story of Christmas – Girl’s in the Boy’s Room style.

“Why are you trying to have a relationship with me if you don’t have time for it?” It was the third time in a month I had asked him that. Still, like the times before he responded only with a long pause and an exhausted exhalation. This was his way of saying, “I’m trying my best” but of course his best proved ultimately to be half-assed. In just 9 weeks my “gentlemen in Burberry” had become a tool in tacky diamond studs. Our conversations had gone from talk about life and love to endless ranting about his soccer career and his dreams of being part of the 1%. No, I’m not kidding. He is actually aspiring be part of the group that holds all of the money and power and well – doesn’t fucking share. Right, because that’s what you should’ve taken away from the Occupy Movement. I’m sure you’re all dying to know how this “star athlete” was planing to spend his money. Feeding starving children? Helping to pay off the national debt? ERR wrong. He wants to live in a castle, build a mote around it, fly around in a rocket ship, and pay his friend to drive him around in a Ferrari. THESE ARE HIS REALISTIC GOALS. First off, anyone who flies around in a rocket ship simply because he can, eh em Richard Branson, is completely environmentally irresponsible. We need less of you flying to mars, and more of you investing in green energy. Thanks! Finally, I want to add how gracious it is of him to consider his friend’s livelihood. Focus on your own career goals? Psh, no I’ll just pay you to drive me around and be my ride bitch. He’s so considerate.

This is all I heard for weeks after he received a rejection from an indoor team in Baltimore. He returned to Tampa with his head low and his faith shaken. We agreed to make it work no matter the distance because having a relationship over the phone was better than not having one at all. Things began to change rapidly. He called less often and when he did he no longer seemed interested in my life. The focus of our conversations almost always consisted of him detailing his plan of attack against the soccer world. Plotting and visualizing where he would be and which team he would play for, with me standing on the sidelines, agreeing with everything he said and assuring him that everything would work itself out. Then, when he had run out of things to say he would casually ask, “How was your day?” and even as I began to describe board meetings, and event marketing I would sense how uninterested he was and stop talking. It’s exhausting trying to be someone’s cheerleader when you receive absolutely nothing in return.

Waiting for him to change back into the person I had fallen for was hopeless. Most times I would hang up the phone feeling empty. I had waited all day to talk to a person who it felt could care less about talking to me. He rambled on about his ex girlfriend from time to time, something that should have been a HUGE red flag. He tweeted angrily about her, used our precious talk time to curse her name, and posted poorly executed rap songs about her on his already faulty sound cloud page. Cool! More and more I began to see why she broke up with him. He was self-obsessed asshole.

Still I soldiered on, dreaming of Christmas when he would be back in Columbus and we could finally be together. One thing you should know about me is that I take the holiday season very seriously. I truly believe it should be the merriest time of the year. Baby Jesus and over gifting aside, Christmas is an opportunity for old friends to return home, families to be reunited, as well as an excuse to over eat and drink! This Christmas would be the best one yet. I would finally get to spend it with someone I truly cared about. I spent most of the autumn months convincing myself that everything would be perfect. Of course everything really went south after I purchased $60.00 worth of gorgeous Victoria’s Secret lingerie to wear for him on Christmas. As soon as I cut the tags off the clouds rolled in and shit hit the fan. The second his plane touched down at CMH he started ignoring my calls. When my messages went unanswered and my calls were directed to voicemail I’d start to think about every time he told me he missed me, every time he told me he was excited to see me, and my heart would fall into my stomach. We spent almost three months talking about seeing each other and when it was finally a possibility he was no where to be found.

We saw each other once. He came over late. I was surprised by his stature, I had remembered him taller than he was. He talked about himself as he gulped down my wine. We had sex which was empty and meaningless though I tried my hardest to pretend otherwise. I woke up early the next morning and looked over at him as he laid there sleeping. I thought seriously about kicking him in the head but instead I slept with him once more before taking him home. After three months he showed up empty handed. Arriving without flowers, condoms (way to be safe bro. You’re 24, get it together), or any hope of repairing our dwindling love affair.

When I agreed to make it work, I meant it. I don’t run out on promises that I make to people and when I say I’m going to do something you better know damn well that I’m going to do it. This is because I’m an adult. I’ve transitioned out of my selfish college years and have become a real person of substance. Unfortunately this isn’t where he is in life. arrogant and unable to see how his actions, or lack thereof, effect the people around him is a clear indication that he hasn’t quite gotten it together yet. So, when he blew me off AGAIN I decided that the only sane thing to do was to tell him to kick rocks.

This Christmas I won’t be standing under the mistletoe or kissing anyone on New Years Eve. I’ll be alone, again. But I’ll be happy knowing that I didn’t hang on too long and that I finally stood up for myself and walked away from someone who wasn’t able to give me what I needed. I’m not happy with the way that it ended, but I’m completely elated that it’s over.

For those of you who may be wondering: No, I did not actually burn his soccer shorts. Although I did run over them a couple of times.

From the time I was a little girl I was crazy about sappy romantic films and “chick flicks”. Even today I still sometimes catch myself gazing stupidly at the screen when Sleepless In Seattle or A Lot Like Love are on daytime T.V. and although I try to fight it, I still believe in their perfect endings and all of the beautiful things they promise. I think most women are guilty of comparing their love lives to some Ashton Kutcher or Channing Tatum movie. We love the idea that “Mr. Right” is out there somewhere. We shift back and forth from day-dreaming to looking around at our friends in dismay while complaining, “Why can’t he be like that?” and “I wish this was real life!” I know how much we love those stories which is why I’m sad to say that this isn’t one of them, sorry ladies.

I recently got a job. A real, annual salary complete with benefits, first full time position. I awake proudly at 6:00am from my wine induced slumber, pull on my form fitting petite dress pants and head off into morning traffic. I work five days a week for eight hours a day answering furious phone calls from dissatisfied clients and trying my best not to cry when I am unable to understand their half broken english. I worked hard my entire life to achieve the American dream and I couldn’t be more unhappy with my life. After the first three weeks I found myself in an emotional pit of despair. I wasn’t eating or writing and I felt as isolated from my peers as ever before. I am the youngest employee in my organization by twenty years. I was sick to death of looking at pictures of my fellow coworkers’ grandchildren and discussing knitting in the break room at lunch. I needed out, I needed to feel young again, I needed to feel loved.

So I YOLO’d; hard. I started drinking at noon for The Ohio State Game, a tradition I had previously never cared for but decided to go along with in my hour of desperation. By three o’clock I had made my way to my friend’s block party and was attempting to join the young neighborhood children in the moon bounce which proved unsuccessful and by four I was stuffing my face with all the pigs-in-a-blankets my tiny body could handle. I’m a Vegetarian. After that, the night got pretty blurry. I found myself on Campus with a group of friends headed to the despised and revered club, “Charlie Bear”. Charlie Bear is a place where dreams go to die and beers go to get spilled. The floor was so sticky that I walked right out of my shoes and into two obviously drunk college students who were actually sucking on each others faces (and suddenly I understood where the expression came from), but as I peered into the face of the man whose face was being sucked, I realized that I recognized him. We caught eyes, he paused, waved, and continued to devour the face of the girl he was with, so I left.

Later in the night he came back around. I knew this person and I had known him almost my entire life. We grew up together. He was my first crush and my first friend. We laughed and caught up with one another for what seemed like hours. As the lights came on and the bouncers began herding the bar’s patrons out like cattle we made the decision that he was coming home with me. Yes, this was real and he was real. The first love of my life and the boy whose initials covered the inside of my childhood diary was coming over to my house to sleep in my bed. I was so thrilled that I even chose to ignore when he fell getting into the cab and forgave him for not having enough money to pay the overworked Egyptian driver.

My memory begins to fade after that. I’m quite certain this is when the Washington Apple shots from last call started to kick in causing my brain to practically shut down. The last thing I can recall was his beautiful blue eyes staring longingly into mine while he said, “Congratulations on still being hot. Most of the girls we grew up with got fat.” It wasn’t quite what I was looking for but it’s amazing what Well Vodka will do to your standards.

The next morning I woke up with a sour beer taste in my mouth and my tongue felt like sand paper. I turned over and opened one eye, hoping it had all been a dream. It wasn’t. I had really taken home my kindergarten crush from Charlie Bear, F**K! But I still had hope. He pulled me in close and kissed my forehead and I felt a sense of relief rush over me. That is, until he lifted up one of his legs and released a gigantic fart right before he leaned in to kiss my lips. Needless to say, I was beyond offended. The worst thing about those kind of situations is not actually that, that’s the third time a guy has post-sex morning farted in my bed, but that I then have to laugh and pretend that it’s not absolutely disgusting out of sheer politeness. “I can’t believe we had sex, I’ve seriously thought about that since we were little.” He thought about having sex with me when we were five? What a pervert. I thought, but smiled. “I’m seriously going to go to my parents house today and I’m gonna walk in, look my mom in the eyes and say, ‘I did it. I fucked L** H********.’ It’s so crazy how she wanted us to get married!” Oh God just kill me now. If you make this go away I’ll be good. I’ll return to my job and never try to recapture my youth through one night stands again. I fake laughed so hard that I could have won an Oscar.

Later that day I was distracting myself from feeling ashamed by gluing my attention to some mindless reality T.V. show as I tried my best to recover from my hangover. I was doing quite fine when my roommate came home. She walked in and stared at me, huddled under a blanket like a small Navajo child, she did her best not to be annoyed. “So, I heard everything last night” Jesus,God we are not having this conversation right now. “I mean, you woke me up. I can deal with sex noises but it was laughing that I couldn’t stand. I just kept thinking, why doesn’t he just hurry up and F**K her already so she shuts up.” And that is the story of why I attempted suicide. No, I’m kidding but a large part of my dignity did die in that moment. From that arose an enormous amount of confusing feelings. Why were we laughing? Were we laughing together or was I laughing at him?

I know that you’re all probably expecting me to turn this around and end this piece with a positive, pro-feminist moral but I don’t have one. Regardless, I did learn a number of very important lessons from this experience. The first of which being that I cannot continue to associate certain men with romantic love simply because they knew me at a more innocent time in my life (like the time I slept with my neighbor in an attempt to fit the “girl next door” stereotype. But we won’t get into that). Another obvious lesson would be to never, ever, under no circumstances leave with a guy from Charlie Bear or even enter that God for saken place ever again, but the single most important thing I will take away from this is that I don’t need to prove to myself that I’m still young and wild by sleeping with someone, even if does make a great story.

Like this:

My hands were shaking as I tightly gripped the steering wheel of my 2001 Saturn. I couldn’t tell if it was because I was nervous or because I had downed two cups of black coffee before I hit the road. Either way, I was excitedly anticipating the night that was to come. I was on my way to visit a friend at another university about an hour or so outside of my hometown. It was mom’s weekend, which for those of you who aren’t familiar, is an annual tradition that celebrates moms and binge drinking. Could there be anything more charming? I wanted to visit my friend but there was another reason why I was feverishly speeding down Route 33, and like always this reason had a penis. I had been talking to her and her boyfriend’s mutual friend for about a month but we had never actually met in person. I decided that small talk texting and blog comments weren’t enough and I wanted to meet the man I had been talking to. So there I was, driving on a two lane highway on my way to meet some random that I had never seen outside of facebook. I know what you’re thinking and yes, I should’ve turned and gone back the way I came rather than acting on my girlish fantasies.

I was hot and the air was thick with moisture when I finally reached Athens. All I could think when I stepped out of my car was that the humidity would ruin my hair and that my makeup would soon melt off of my face. I was annoyed and I needed a drink. I met him, we exchanged hellos and I was mildly impressed. He had a beard that seemed to have a life of it’s own. (Now, I know certain men will sit there and congratulate each other on their beards and being manly men but no matter how hard I try to convince myself that it’s cool, I just can’t do it. You all look like you have a vagina stuck to your face. Shave it.) Besides his wickedly thick facial hair, he was tall and thin. To tell you the truth he closely resembled Abraham Lincoln. That is to say if old Abe wore cargo shorts and flip flops. I’ve done better, but I’m sure I’ve also done worse so I shook it off and for the most part dismissed his appearance completely. Anyway, it was that golden personality of his which everyone assured me of that I was most concerned about.

I’ve been dating a lot lately. I’ve gone on dinner dates, I’ve met various men for drinks, I’ve even accompanied them to parties and social affairs. I’ve acquired a taste for dating and I have certain standards that these potentials need to meet. The most important one being, do not try to stick your penis in any of my holes. Don’t put it in my hand, don’t rub it on me, for God’s sakes don’t even take it out. I have a personal space bubble and I don’t want anyones dick trying to penetrate it. Another is of course an issue of cost. Be a damn gentlemen and at least offer to pay. You don’t even have to pay for all of it, just a drink or so. Show me that you’re willing and able to treat me, if I’m interested I’ll even do the same. This leads me into another important guideline, which is politeness. Be polite, this can be accomplished by keeping the subject of conversation light and tame. Don’t attempt to hold a heated debate with someone you’re meeting for the first time because, frankly, it’s strange and off-putting. Ask me about myself in an attempt to see me as more than a walking vagina with nice hair. The last is, acknowledge my existence. Yes, at the very least, don’t leave me in a strange bar or choose to stare at me awkwardly from across the dance floor rather than actually engaging me in conversation.

He shat on my guidelines and broke every fucking rule. by morning my self esteem was as beaten and bloodied as Rodney King was in ’91. He was a renegade dater and a total psychopath. When I first noticed that for every beer he grabbed he ordered a shot of Jameson I should have ran. The fact that he was mindlessly slurping down shot after shot should have been a clear warning of what was to come. He’s a drinker, but he’s also a writer. People love saying that, men especially love it. I remember when my brother threw back bottles of cheap whiskey, hiding the fact that he was a complete lush behind a mask of creative expression. “I drink because I’m a writer, I’m a writer because I drink.” No, you drink because you’re a child. You’re just a giant drunken baby with a beard, and you’re not Hemingway so stop it.

He was drunk, that was clear. For the most part he ignored me, aside from the occasional attempt at saying something witty and charming he stayed away. Later when I mentioned this he lurched forward and said, “I told you I would be talking to a lot of other girls and I would be surrounded by beautiful women.” The beautiful women he was referring to were all drunken mothers and it wasn’t the fact that he talking to them that bothered me, it was the fact that we wasn’t talking to me at all. For as excited as he was to meet me, he had very little to say. Instead he watched me from afar, something that should have also been a clear warning sign.

Outside of the bar he began to yell at me and argue about feminism. “Every girl in Athens is a whore, all of them walking the streets, they’re all sluts.” He stuck is arms in the air as if he was speaking of something truly profound or worth my time. My favorite was when he told me to go shave my vagina. I’m still confused about the point he was trying to make with that charming little line. Of course, he was a charmer. I mean after all that’s what everyone had told me. I’m not sure how long we argued for but I know that at one point it had to be broken up by the friend who had introduced us. I really thought he was joking, now that I’m looking back I’m not sure that he was.

Afterward, and for whatever reason, I went home with him. And there it was, my self loathing had reared it’s ugly head and my debilitatingly low self esteem had taken over along with the mass amount of alcohol I had consumed. What’s the fastest way to get into my pants? Call me ugly or stupid and add beer, it works every time! Kissing him was like making out with a brillo pad. It was all hair and no tongue. When I told him that I didn’t want to have sex with him he wined, and hurumphed, and groaned and finally told me to, “Grow up!” I got up and started to gather my things but then the tears came. Embarrassed I tried to hide them from him, I just wanted to leave but I was in a strange town and I had no where to go. Upon seeing me wipe my eyes he apologized, talked me down, and invited me back into bed. “I won’t even touch you, I’ll lay over here, and you can lay over there.” Oh right, because that’s exactly how it works. Before too long he asked if he could kiss me and I told him that was fine, but it quickly progressed. He simply kept asking for more and more and of course I accepted every time. I had previously been protested against and I felt defeated. I was not in the mood to hear him throw another temper tantrum, so rather than watching him get all huffy I just let it happen. The funny thing is, this story is astoundingly similar to how I lost my virginity. Both instances made me seriously question my heterosexuality.

This just another glaring example of how women’s choice can be easily violated. How was he supposed to understand that I haven’t embodied choice, if he doesn’t know what the inability to say NO feels like? I say YES, I say it too frequently. I say it when I really mean NO, I say it when I mean MAYBE but I know that I won’t be granted enough time to make my decision. I say YES but I don’t even know what it means. I don’t know what it feels like to say NO during sex and have it mean something. My voice is too small and my plea is overruled. This is just one of many reasons why I fear intimacy and have failed at having a healthy relationship with a man. It’s because I don’t know what healthy looks like. I do understand, however, that sleeping with someone before even knowing them isn’t healthy. I know that I’m a twenty two year old hopeless romantic and that’s okay. I can be that way, just as long as it’s not in the bed of a plastered and aggressively sexual male. I know what I want and I know that, that wasn’t it.

When I stood up to leave he poked his up and said, “Argue with you again sometime soon then?” The look on my face had to have said it all. Really?? Making me cry wasn’t a clear indication that this didn’t go well? Upon telling him that this was the last time we’d meet he raised his arms in protest and said, “You used me! I was just a one night stand to you, then!” Never have I ever had the urge to spit on someone the way I did in that moment. I walked out of his room with out saying much of anything. I got lost, and couldn’t find the front door to his architecturally demented apartment. Once I found it I began my long walk back to my friends house. I passed mothers passed out in their own vomit and sleeping on front porches. On arrival, I opened her door in one solid motion, looked her dead in the eye and with all the seriousness I could muster I mouthed, “Get me the hell out of Athens.”